


we took the midnight train, going anywhere

by basil



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Brothers, Canonical Character Death, Gen, sorry this is ridiculously soppy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-21
Updated: 2013-03-21
Packaged: 2017-12-05 23:19:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/729055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/basil/pseuds/basil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Fred wakes at the train station, Lily is waiting for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we took the midnight train, going anywhere

**Author's Note:**

> Written after watching the last movie and having a lot of feelings about it.

When Fred wakes, he's naked and alone.  
In any other scenario, he's sure this would be an issue, but for some reason it doesn't seem very important. The absence of George is strange, an almost tangible ache, a void where he should be able to stretch an arm and brush an identical shoulder.  
He's also in a large, white train station, alone but for a woman sitting on one of the benches a little ways away. Her hair is vibrantly red in the bright, white light, and for one breathless moment he thinks it's Mum, or Ginny, and starts towards her, but when she turns to smile at him her eyes are Harry's eyes and Lily Evans, dead for sixteen years, stands to hug him. 

He lets her, because she's warm and feels like sunshine and his mother's fresh bread, and as she holds him it hits him like a ton of bricks, he's sitting here with a dead woman and the only possible explanation is that he must be dead too.

"Has anyone else passed this way, Mrs. Potter?" Not George, not Ron, not Perce--if he's dead, who else? 

Lily smiles at him and he can see hints of Harry not only in her eyes, but also in the way the corners of her mouth turn up and her small, slight build. 

"Too many people have passed this way today already. But you are the first person I've seen with red hair." She stands, and brushes off her blouse and slacks, even though the bench is white and pristine. "Are you ready to go? I've been waiting for you."

He means to say yes, but the words stick in his throat as he thinks of George, somewhere down there alone, and all that leaves his mouth is a strangled noise. "George," he says, relieved that the sounds are coming properly this time. "What about George?"

"You will see him again, darling. You will see everyone again. But today is not George's time. I'm sorry, love. It won't be long, though, not to us. Time doesn't work the same here. If you want, we can wait here at the station. Or we can leave. It's your choice."

Lily smoothes Fred's hair back from his forehead, and he's struck how young she looks. Only in her twenties when she died, she's about his age now. And also that he's naked. But there's a robe on the floor that definitely wasn't there before so he puts that on. It's warm like it just came from being dried.

"Is there a train?"

"There are too many trains to count."

"Where do they all go?"

Lily smiles that wonderfully maternal smile again. "Anywhere you want, except back. Those who go back aren't the same anymore."

Fred thinks of the second Peverell brother and his reincarnated fiancee, and shudders. No, that's not an option. There's only one thing to do--

"I'll go anywhere. Just to wait for George. It doesn't matter."

"I'm glad you've made a choice," Lily tells him. A whistle blows. "Here comes the train now--if I'm not mistaken, they'll have sent someone to collect us."

A white train sputters into the platform, and waving from the window is none other than Cedric Diggory. 

They take him to a house in a meadow that stretches forever in every direction, or at least as far as Fred can tell. The house is full of laughter and joy always, for it's hard to be unhappy there, but everyone is always waiting: James and Lily and Sirius and Cedric wait for Harry, Remus and Tonks wait for Teddy, and Fred waits for George. 

Eventually Harry arrives, killed in a battle between the Aurors and some rogue vampires. Though he was in his fifties when he died, he looks a teenager again. He's not George, but it's good to see him again. But after a few days, James announces that they're moving on. 

"You must understand, Fred, that this was only a halfway point. We don't know what's beyond, but we wanted to see Harry again first."

"Goodbye, darling," says Lily, kissing his cheek. "Come soon, won't you?"

"If you see Ginny and the kids," says Harry, "Tell them to come and that I love them."

And so Fred finds himself on the platform, waving goodbye to James, Lily, Sirius, and Harry as they speed into the Beyond.

Teddy is next, shot by zealous anti-werewolf activists so Remus and Tonks board the train to the Beyond with the son they're just starting to know. 

Cedric leaves when Amos Diggory comes puffing up the path, shouting, "There's my boy!" while happy tears stream down his cheeks and Fred is all alone. He doesn't need to sleep or eat, so he takes to waiting on the platform. There's nothing keeping him at the halfway house anymore.

Finally, finally, a familiar figure walks out of the mist, and there he is, with the features Fred knows are mirrored on his own face. 

"Been waiting long?" George asks.

Fred holds his brother like he's never letting go. "You bloody great git," he says. "I've been alone all this time."

"Never," George promises, and Fred can hear what's unspoken: that Gred and Forge will never be apart, ever again. 

"It's time to go."

"Where are we going?" George asks.

"Does it really matter?"

Together, they board they train. Together, they watch the halfway house disappear and the fields turn into forests. Together they pass through a glorious blaze of white light into the Beyond. 

“And as He spoke, He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”  
-C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle


End file.
